ANOTHER BROOKLYN

A slow jazz interlude sets the tone for Robin Miles’s performance of this long-awaited new novel for adults by children’s author Jacqueline Woodson. As August’s father dies, she takes time away from studying funeral traditions around the world to come home. Returning brings myriad memories of “growing up ‘Girl’ in Brooklyn” in the 1970s—a time when the borough seemed idyllic to her and her three girlfriends but, in looking back, she now realizes was full of threats to the innocent. Miles’s rich voice embraces dialects, accents, and moods as August’s thoughts float back and forth in time, remembering childhood and adolescent experiences. Miles illuminates the novel’s themes, celebrating Woodson’s lines as if they were fine jazz improvisations. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2016]